Freeverse has announced the release of Commander: Napoleon at War for the Mac, the second in the Commander line from the strategy captains at Firepower Entertainment and Slitherine Software.

This installment of the Commander series places the player at the brink of war in the Napoleonic era. Re-write history with the same outstanding gameplay mechanics as Commander: Europe at War, but in a new dynamic setting, complete with amazing graphics and compelling campaigns.

In addition to the same seamless performance you’ve come to expect from this high level turn-based series, new features include a deeper combat system, detailed victory conditions, looting, razing, vassal states, and much more! Will you lead Napoleon’s France to an empire of infamy, or emerge as the victor to quell his ambition?

Main Game Features:

• 8 campaigns including the Grand campaign and a number of small campaigns including France’s assault on Austria in 1805 up to the 100 days campaign ending at Waterloo in 1815• Take control of Napoleon's forces or the Allied Coalition who opposed him, including Britain, Prussia, Austria and Russia• Huge map covering all of Europe in amazing detail• Research many new technologies and control the focus of your nation’s research• Dynamic weather system including mud, snow, storms and more!• Trade routes and pirate raids, fortresses and siege warfare• 12 different unit types including: Militia, Line Infantry, Light & Heavy Cavalry, Foot & Horse Artillery, Frigates, Ships of the Line and Pirates and Privateers• Recruit historic commanders such as Ney, Blucher, Wellington & many more• Multiplayer via LAN, hot seat, PBEM and Internet accessibility with a selection of smaller scenarios specifically designed for multiplayer

Electronic Arts has release a new trailer and collection of screenshots for the upcoming Spore expansion, Galactic Adventures. The add-on for Will Wright's evolution sim will offer the ability to beam down to planets, an equipment editor, and an Adventure Creator that will give players the tools to create their own missions.

Take Your Creature From Zero To Galactic Hero:Get out of your starship and turn your Spore creatures into legendary Space Captains. For the first time, beam down with your allies to take on action-packed, planetside adventures. Complete quests, collect rewards, and even create and share your own missions!

Key Features:PLAY a variety of Maxis-created missions as you explore planets all over the galaxy!LEVEL UP your Space Captain and earn more than 30 powerful new accessories! your own missions with the all-new Adventure Creator, then share them online!

EA also recently announced that the game's official release date is June 23rd, and that Galactic Adventures is the first of four Spore related titles coming this year.

MacGamer recently posted a review of A Vampyre Story, a point and click adventure brought to the Mac by Virtual Programming. The game tells the tale of opera singer Mona De Lafitte who struggles with her new life after being turned into a vampire.

From the review:

Mona is in complete denial concerning her undead status. Despite the fact that she can’t stand daylight, sleeps in a coffin, can transform herself into a bat, is repelled by garlic and the sign of the cross, she insists she’s not dead. She claims she doesn’t drink blood, only a thick Merlot that is a bit salty with an iron aftertaste. She yearns to escape Castle Warg so she can return to Paris and her career as an opera singer.

For an undead monster, Shrowdy is something of a wimp who is intimidated by Mona. He built her an opera studio in the castle where she can sing. The henpecked Baron is “killed” (remember, he’s already dead) while searching for blood for Mona.

And so, Mona is finally free to leave the castle and return to France … or is she?

The game mechanics are simple almost to the point of elegance. A point-and-click moves Mona to any place on the screen. Mona has four initial choice to interact with characters or objects — examine, take or touch, talk, or turn into a bat and fly to the object.

As a rule of thumb, try all four with everything and everyone. One of the game’s nicer features is using the TAB key to highlight all the things on the screen of importance to Mona. There are a LOT of these and it can sometimes get tedious going through everything.

When talking to other characters, there is a menu of questions. Previously asked questions are grayed out, so upon returning, the player doesn’t have to go through the whole conversation again. However, it is a good idea to go through the entire dialogue with characters at least once.

Another nice feature is the mouse right-click that automatically moves Mona through doors. Otherwise, you have to wait while she strolls across the screen. Use the Spacebar to bypass movie cut scenes.

The OnLive gaming service was recently announced at the Game Developer's Conference. Developed over seven years, the broadband service promises to offer a variety of game choices to subscribers by handling the each game's video and audio on remote servers and streaming the results to players. The service is compatible with Mac and Windows based machines, or without a machine at all through the use of a "micro console" attachment which connects directly to a television.

From Gamasutra:

What's most important though, says OnLive founder and CEO Steve Perlman and COO Mike McGarvey, is that the system works with any standard PC game, and does not require developers to code for a proprietary system.

"What OnLive does is seamless and completely transparent, and it does not have any requirements for the local system."

OnLive's service, which is planned to combine a relatively low monthly subscription fee with other per-game business models not yet fully determined, requires only a one-megabyte download to a computer, or a small plastic dongle (called a "micro-console") to connect to a TV; no GPU is required.

Once subscribed, users will be able to run any of the service's games, regardless of system requirements -- Gamasutra was able to try the system out with graphical powerhouses like Crytek's Crysis and Codemasters' GRID.

A number of major publishers including Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Warner Bros., Take-Two, Eidos, and Atari have already signed on. And the company has announced a partnership with Epic Games that will see the Unreal Engine 3 easily adapt to OnLive's APIs.

"Not only have we solved the problem of compressing the video games, we've solved the latency problem," Perlman said to Gamasutra. "We knew, in order to make this thing work, we'd have to figure out a way to get video to run compressed over consumer connections with effectively no latency. Our video compression technology has one millisecond in latency -- basically no latency at all. All the latency is just for the transport, and we've also addressed that."